4 Local SEO Tools for Marketing Your Business in a Specific Geographical Area

Business owners of brick and mortar locations often focus much of their marketing on local mediums such as newspaper and radio. But if you are trying to attract customers in a geographical area and you are not using the many local SEO tools available, then you are missing out on a lot of foot traffic.

How the Internet Affects Business Marketing

Companies that exist only online understand the importance of local SEO tools. By using a service such as Anytime Mailbox, a virtual business can utilize a digital mailbox service that offers a virtual mailbox with a physical location. The online business can use this address to enhance the idea that it has a local physical location and drive local website traffic.

The idea of using SEO to drive local web traffic and grow business in a certain geographic area can also be used by brick and mortar businesses that want to drive more foot traffic. It is important for brick and mortar business owners to remember that their customers are doing searches online to find local businesses that sell a variety of products. If you are not using the right SEO tactics to capture that traffic, you are missing out on a lot of business.

Geo Marketing

Geomarketing is utilizing programs to entice foot traffic to come your business and enjoy your pricing promotions. The majority of these types of software are smartphone apps that have consumers check into your business and receive marketing information. The more popular tools you can use to do geo marketing include FourSquare, Geoconcept, MapInfo and GeoEdge.

The concept of geographic marketing was first used by people who would go on scavenger hunts for what are called geo-tracking groups. Each member would check into the predetermined sites and grab the clues that were left behind. But it did not take long for businesses to realize that they could entice consumers to spend money by using the technology to offer pricing specials, reviews and other information about the businesses.

The Versatility of Geo Marketing

Using apps that allow customers to track where they shop is not only a stroke of marketing genius, but it also offers a lot of other benefits as well. With this type of technology, a brick and mortar business can determine if its location is profitable enough, track consumer trends more accurately and focus advertising efforts on individual consumers and make it more effective.

This type of marketing is an effective way for online tools to generate foot traffic. But a robust marketing plan also works on developing more web traffic to your online presence and turning that traffic into buying customers. There are several tools you can use to increase the amount of local web traffic you get for your brick and mortar business.

Google My Business

Google My Business is an entire program Google has developed to allow local businesses to get priority spots on results pages for local searches. It is important that businesses fill out their GMB profiles completely and utilize all of the tools available, including the picture section and the tour of your business.

The more comprehensively you fill out the GMB information, the better your chances are of having your business appear along the sidebar or at the top of local business search results. The best part is that thislocal SEO tool is completely free.

A Buy Local Group

The rise of big box department stores has forced smaller local businesses into a corner. While tools such as Google My Business are effective, there are groups starting that pool their resources together to bring more marketing clout to the businesses in the area.

You are going to have to do some research to find the right tools for this marketing tactic, but if you do a search on the more popular social media platforms for “buy local campaigns,” you will find what you are looking for. These are usually social media groups that use SEO tactics to help give the websites of brick and mortar companies more exposure, and these groups also try to educate the public on the benefits of buying local.

Review Websites

The use of review websites and apps such as Yelp! to drive local business should be a saturated idea by now, but it is not. These ratings sites and apps are still extremely popular and they are SEO tools you need to be using to your advantage.

The one caveat to using these sites is that you cannot directly ask people to go online and review your business. However, you can put up signage (which you can usually get directly from the website or app makers) that tells people that your business can be reviewed on those websites. Review sites generate a great deal of local traffic and you are definitely missing out if you are not trying to maximize this option.

If you own a brick and mortar business that relies on foot traffic to survive, then you need to start maximizing the SEO tools that are available for local businesses. Your customers are already online looking for companies just like yours. If you are not helping them to find your company by using local SEO tactics, then you are missing out on a tremendous amount of business.